You and I should by nature be optimistic. Even when things are not going as well as we would like our overall outlook should remain favorable of a good outcome. Of course it will take more than wishful thinking. During my early formative years many families ordered such things as household goods and clothing through mail order merchandise companies. My mother bought a lot of clothing and some other items from Montgomery Ward and the Sears and Roebuck mail order companies. Their catalogs were commonly called “wish books.” When a new catalog from one of these companies came through the mail us kids would wear the pages out turning through them. Their Christmas catalogs always caught my eye. My dad would have had to have a small fortune to buy all the things that I wished for as I thumbed through the pages of those holiday catalogs.

A pessimistic person is an individual who looks to the gloomy side of life. They probably “program” themselves to be failures and/or to receive negative results. With that kind of attitude a person may think of him or herself as someway being cursed. The only hope for such individuals is to convince them that they’re destiny is in their own hands. Probably the real culprit is self-centeredness. They need to think of others instead of being self-centered. We don’t have to wait until January 1st to start out with a fresh and favorable outlook on life. Instead of feeling sorry for self-such individuals need to wake-up each morning looking for opportunities to improve their life by helping others.

In contrast an optimistic person has a good outlook on life. He wakes-up enthusiastically expecting good things to happen unto him. An optimist begins a new day seeking opportunities to acquire new friends, new challenges, to try new concepts, and to look forward to helping someone in need.

Each new day “we need to wake up and smell the coffee!” This is one way of saying, “Let’s be realistic and be prepared to deal with whatever we face on a given day. Have the attitude that I can cope with whatever I face. This is being optimistic!

Sometimes the expression: “wake up in a new world everyday” is applied to a person who doesn’t let things in general worry him or her, but starts each new day innocently. It is as if they were born on the new day with the need to learn life anew.

Dub Mowery is a Gospel preacher in the Church of Christ. Presently he serves as full time evangelist for the Pittsburg Church of Christ. A native of Southeast Oklahoma, he is the author of Colloquial Sayings & Expressions (Morris Publishing, 2008)